Updates, Updates...

I'ts really hard these days to find the time, energy, and great will to regularly update this blog. What can I say? I have a busy 5 year old and a toddler who needs full-time attention and supervision.

So what's new?

Big Girl had her 5th birthday two weeks ago. More info and pics later...She cut her first tooth before that and got a shiny coin from the tooth fairy.

She also started Year 1 a few weeks ago. Time flies really fast! I can't believe how fast my baby is growing up...

I got a teaching job at an international school. I will start working again in January, and I'm very excited about it.

I've been taking driving lessons for several weeks now, and I think, I'm finally ready to take the test. Wish me luck!

Mr. Big's is currently enjoying his school term vacation.

We just had a nice 7-day adventure at KK (Kota Kinabalu). More entries about it later...

Till then!

Sultan's Birthday

Last Thursday, July 15th, was Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah's 64th birthday. It was a national holiday, but Mr. Big and some of his co-teachers had to bring some of their students near the palace early in the morning to greet the Sultan with flags and banners, along with thousand others.

Weeks before that, shops and other establishments everywhere put up their greeting banners. Some busy roads had big birthday greeting signs from popular companies.

According to the news, it was also a lucky day for the babies who were born on that day. They got lots of gifts and souvenirs, including prams and $100!

Now that's a happy birthday!

Usual Family Sunday

Unless there's a special occasion or we're not home, we try to keep our little family tradition every sunday...

1. Pancakes for breakfast. Mr. Big likes his with honey, while Big Girl and I like ours with extra butter and a sprinkle of sugar-cinnamon powder on top. Big Boy will eat whatever you give him.

2. Meat-vegetable tomato-based stew for lunch. Everybody loves it, and best of all, I get to use the vegetables in the fridge before they go bad. Thus, the ingredients vary everytime. I use whatever is available, as long as it will keep the stew tasting like stew. Today we had chicken with baby corn, snow peas, sweet potatoes, and cabbage. Yum!

3. Swimming in the afternoon. Our great attempt at exercising! The kids love it though. Plus, it makes them really tired, which makes sleeping time afterwards a breeze!

While having a pap smear...

After seeing the doctor bring out a metal tool (called the "speculum", thanks toWiki)...The clinic had no stirrups, just the usual check-up bed, and the doctor was not nice at all.

"Oh, are we using that?"

"Yes!" [incredulous tone] "I thought you had pap smears before? What? They don't use this in Korea?"

"Sorry, I just didn't know. I was up on the stirrups so I didn't see. "

"Stare up? You can stare up!"

School Break for Big Girl

Big girl's school break has started. It's too bad that her daddy doesn't share the same vacation time, but that's okay, there are tons of activities for her to do anyway.

Mr. Big's company has a summer camp for a month at the RBA (Royal Brunei Airlines) club. That's 4 weeks of swimming, small fieldtrips, and other fun stuff. Most of her friends in school are joining as well, so she's very excited about it. Plus, once a week she'll have art class and ballet.

The summer camp costs almost nothing, but the art and ballet classes are surprisingly very pricey. It costs about USD 50 a month for 4 lessons in art class. In Korea, we paid about USD 100 for 20 lessons a month plus they pick the kids up and bring them back home for free. Same thing for ballet. It costs about USD 65 a month for 4 lessons. In Korea, we paid about USD 85 for 12 lessons! And again, the school bus is included.

Considering how most necessities (water, petrol, food, electricity) are way cheaper here than in Korea, we really didn't expect to pay this much. My guess is it's because there isn't enough competition around. There are only 2 ballet schools to choose from and the art school is probably the only genuine one here.

Big girl really loves making art and dancing ballet though. She actually wants to go to these classes more than once a week! We'll see, but I guess, we really don't have a choice. As the Visa commercial goes:

Art class: 50 dollars
Ballet class: 65 dollars
Driver: 100 dollars

Big Girl's happy face: Priceless!

Big Girl when she was 3 years old

OMG, a snake!

Just heard that one of Mr. Big's teaching colleagues found a baby cobra (seriously!) in their kitchen. Fortunately, nobody got bitten before the firemen came to deal with it.

(Check out this family's similar scary experience here in Brunei.)

This is not surprising considering how Brunei is basically an inhabited rainforest/jungle, but it's still really scary, especially since we're only a house away from the wild .

See the picture on the header? That's the view from our veranda. It's nice because we sometimes see monkeys swinging on the trees and we get visited by small reptiles, but having snakes in the house is a totally different matter, of course!

We're used to seeing this fellow around.

TGIF---especially in Brunei

Brunei is an Islamic country, and since Friday is a go-to-mosque day, it's also an off day for most public offices, hospitals, and schools. It's business as usual on Saturdays though.

It's still a bit strange for us that Mr. Big has Fridays off instead of Saturdays, but we're getting used to it. This means though that we can't have weekend trips somewhere. Fortunately, he gets a 2-week  break every  2 1/2 months.

The international school follows a Monday to Friday schedule though. At least, Big Girl and I get to sleep in a bit on weekends!